The British Society for the History of Mathematics
British Science Festival, Birmingham, Wednesday 15 September 2010, 3pm
Pi occurs in every branch of mathematics, and has fascinated mathematicians of many cultures since antiquity. 2010 is the anniversary of the death of Ludolph van Ceulen, who calculated the first 35 decimal places of pi (and had these digits engraved on his tombstone). Since then pi and its digits has fascinated mathematicians. Learn how pi got its name, how mathematicians found more and more digits, how we can calculate pi to surprising accuracy by recreating a historical experiment and some of the many remarkable places in mathematics where pi makes a sometimes very unexpected appearance!
Further information will be available on the British Science Festival website in due course.
The British Society for the History of Mathematics is registered as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3326816, and as a charity, no. 1061229. Its registered office is c/o Andrew Thurburn & Co, 38 Tamworth Road, Croydon, Surrey CR0 1XU, UK.